#lee article

1991, October 17th - ¡Hola! magazine, Spain

The Yesterday and Today of the protagonists of the news

LEE STARKEY. THE YOUNGEST DAUGHTER OF "BEATLE" RINGO STARR IS TODAY A FASHION DESIGNER AND HAS OPENED A FASHION BOUTIQUE IN HOLLYWOOD

The mythical Hollywood of the big stars looks at Lee Starkey, youngest daughter of Ringo Starr, the ex-member of The Beatles. Lee is now twenty-one years old, but she seems younger (“People look at me" –she explains– "and still think that I’m thirteen”) and she has become owner of a “boutique” in the elegant district of Los Angeles, where she sells bright spangles trousers, daring miniskirts and psychedelic fur tunics like if they were hot pastries. The shop is at the heart of the most fashion district of LA, Melrose Avenue, where famous stars like Madonna, Michelle Pfeiffer and Julia Roberts make their purchases.

“Daddy hasn’t helped me with money”, tells Lee, while she shows us her most favourite clothes designed by herself and her thirty-year-old partner Christian Paris. Lee continues explaining that her father gave her moral support and brought lots of friends to the opening of the boutique, which was last month [sic]. “He’s much exited" – she remarks – "that in the end I’ve found something that I love to do”.

Lee Starkey – that’s Ringo’s real surname – was five years old when her mother, Maureen, and her very famous father divorced in 1975. Both of them married again: her mother with Isaac Tigrett, Hard Rock Cafe founder, and Ringo with the actress Barbara Bach. However, when the youngest daughter of the former Beatle opened her “boutique” in Hollywood both parents attended with her brothers Zak, 25, and Jason, 24 [sic], to wish her luck.

“I’m not an expert of The Beatles”, admits Lee with a smile, adding next: “If I want to know something about them I ask to my father. But I’m a drawer and designer of sixties fashion. Is in those years where I find my inspiration. I’ve tried to bring the vibrations, the colours and the freedom of that style to the nineties”.

In what there is not any doubt is that with their store, Planet Alice, Lee is making a good business, showing that her idea was spot on. Lee, before being devoted to this, tried to introduce herself to the acting world, went to a make-up school and even she wanted to play drums. In the end she met her partner, Christian Paris, a well-known clothes designer of whom she says: “We are very affectionate to each other and this is platonic”. Paris was already owner of a Planet Alice shop in London, namely in Portobello. Also he owns one of the most fashionable discotheques in London, Alice in Wonderland. Now attending to Lee’s wishes, he has opened a new “boutique” in Hollywood.

“We opened it a month ago, but I can already say that Lee's idea has been successful. The sales demonstrate it”, says Christian, happy, after they’ve achieved to sell clothes that worth 1000$ to a group of Latin visitors from Miami, that they were dressed with clothes bought in Planet Alice. “Lee has a lot of energy and wonderful ideas" – he continues – "and when she starts to work, like today, the cash begins to sound”.

Ringo Starr and his first wife, Maureen, parents, like we’ve said before, of three children Zak, Jason and Lee, where divorced sixteen years ago, after having lived a great love story since their adolescence. Maureen was eighteen years old when she married Ringo. She worked then in a hairdresser of Liverpool and after marrying she passed of living in a modest neighbourhood with her family to a luxurious and elegant mansion in Tittenhurst Park, without limitation of expenses. However, those happy years would leave to the fret when Ringo, crawled by a vortex of the fame and the popularity, began to stop worrying of her and began to be related with other women. In the divorce demand that finally she had to outline, Maureen mentioned a model, Nancy Andrews, a young and very pretty dark-haired Californian woman, as the cause of the end of her marriage. This romance, however, didn't have a happy ending and time later the famous Beatles' drummer got married with the actress Barbara Bach, who had been married an Italian producer before. "I had never wanted to get divorced" - said Maureen later -."I adored Richie (it is this way she called to Ringo) and I felt a great affection and respect towards him." When her lawyer told her that to obtain the separation she should say to the judge that she didn't stand to live beside his husband, she cried bitterly and time later recognized: "I shouldn’t never have said that, because it was not true."

The three children of the marriage continued living with their mother, giving them Ringo Starr a generous pension. However, with time, Maureen claimed in the tribunals an increase of it sustaining that, used to the deluxe life that her husband had accustomed them, she had requested little money. "The boys continue living with me" - she said - "and for them I take this step." Each one followed their own road later and, in 1985, Ringo and Maureen became grandparents. Their older son, Zak, then aged nineteen years old and being drummer like his father, had a daughter named Tatia Jayne. Ringo Starr was the first member of the Beatles to become a grandfather. In that occasion Ringo Starr himself, his former-wife, Maureen, and with them their other two children Jason and Lee, they went together to the hospital where the little girl was born. Maureen Kox [sic] - this was her maiden name - married time later the millionaire Isaac Bach [sic] and in 1987 they had a daughter.

Pictures by Vanegas Barrand (Keystone-Nemes)

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1991, November 2nd  - HELLO! Magazine

Spotlight on the children of the stars

RINGO STARR’S DAUGHTER LEE

Sixties Fashion – not The Beatles – is what this young tycoon is into

Just look at Ringo Starr’s little girl now!

The ex-Beatle’s daughter, Lee Starkey, now 21 (“People look at me and still think I’m 13”), has become Hollywood’s latest fashion tycoon, selling dazzling sequined hot pants, microscopic mini skirts and psychedelic kaftans like hot-cakes from her very own boutique, slap in the middle of Los Angeles' trendiest district, Melrose Avenue.

“Daddy didn’t help at all with money,” says Lee, giving a delighted spin as she proudly models a selection of her favourite gear, all designed by herself and her partner, Christian Paris, 30.

“Daddy has given me plenty of moral support though – he brought all his friends to our grand opening. Sometimes he just walks in unexpectedly and drags people in off the street to see our clothes!

“He’s thrilled that at last I’ve found something I love to do.”

Lee Starkey was five when her mother Maureen and famous father Ringo divorced in 1975. And although her parents have since remarried (her mother to Hard Rock Cafe founder Isaac Tigrett, and Ringo to actress Barbara Bach) the extended family are all fast friends.

And when their little girl opened her very own boutique in Hollywood, both parents turned up along with brothers Zak, 25, and Jason, 23, to cheer her on.

“I’m by no means an expert on the Beatles,” admits Lee with a pretty smile. “If I want to know something about the Beatles, I simply ask my dad. But what I am drawn to is the fashions of the Sixties. That’s where I get my inspiration. I’ve tried to bring the vibrancy and colour and freedom of those fashions into the Nineties.”

And Lee’s splashily painted shop, dubbed Planet Alice, is doing a roaring trade, proving her ideas have hit the jackpot.

Lee tried acting, make-up school and even the drums before she finally hooked up with partner Christian Paris of whom she says: “We’re very fond of each other, but it’s just platonic.”

Christian already owned a Planet Alice store in London’s Portobello Road, a business he operated along with the London disco Alice in Wonderland.

He still owns his disco, but under Lee’s urging he’s now relocated his clothing boutique to Hollywood.

“We’ve only been open a month, but already I can see Lee’s idea was sound – sales are blistering,” says Christian happily, as he rings up a $1,000 sale to a group of visiting Miami Latinos who were dressed in clothes bought at Planet Alice only the previous day.

“Lee has so much energy, such wonderful ideas. And when she starts modelling like today – the cash register fairly clangs!”

REPORT: RODERICK BARRAND

1991, July - People magazine (US)

Ringo Starr’s 20-year-old daughter, Lee Starkey, celebrates the styles of her pop’s generation in her new Hollywood shop.

A STARR’S NEW PLANET

Ringo’s daughter, Lee Starkey, slips back into the ‘60s at her transplanted L.A. store, Planet Alice

Lee Starkey was born in 1970 – the year The Beatles split up. She didn’t see the swooning fans on The Ed Sullivan show and never questioned whether Paul was dead. As far as she was concerned, her father, Ringo Starr, was just another guy in a rock group. “It wasn’t like a really big thing,” she says. “I went to school with lots of people whose parents were in bands. I knew one of the Hollies’ daughters.”

Even now, when other rock legend’s children – Chynna Phillips, Carnie and Wendy Wilson and Gunnar and Matthew Nelson – are building megacareers with their parents’ names, Starkey, 20, doesn’t call attention to her roots. “I generally don’t tell anyone who my father is,” says Lee, who was raised in London by her mother, Maureen, after her parents’ 1975 divorce. “I didn’t know that much about the Beatles, so I kept my mouth shut.”

Lee communes with Ringo at the boutique's opening bash. "When there's something going on, we're all there," she says of her family.

Starkey is more comfortable talking about her own burgeoning career as co-owner of Planet Alice, a psychedelic boutique she opened last month with partner Christian Paris on L.A.’s trendy Melrose Avenue. Though it is stocked with what she describes as “’90s interpretations of ‘60s styles,” Starkey says, “I didn’t consciously do this because it’s what the Beatles wore in their heyday, but it must have had something to do with it.”

For his part, Ringo is glad that Lee, who didn’t ask him for financial help, “finally found something to put herself into,” he says. “She tried acting school and decided she didn’t like that. She got her diploma from makeup school and wasn’t really enthusiastic about that.” She even tried the drums. “But I wasn’t too good at it,” Starkey admits. Older brothers Zak, 25, and Jason, 23, became the drummers in the family, while Lee persuaded her pal Paris to relocate his Planet Alice shop from London’s Portobello Road to Hollywood. Waiting for her on these shores was her mother, who moved to L.A. last year after marrying Isaac Tigrett, cofounder of the Hard Rock Cafe empire. (The couple have a 4-year-old daughter, Augusta) Lee and Paris, who say their partnership is platonic, are living chez Tigrett until they find places of their own.

"I've never read a book about The Beatles," says Starkey (sketching at home). "If there's anything I want to know, I can just ask my dad".

“We’ve always been very family oriented,” says Lee, who spent childhood summers with her father at his estate at Ascot, where she occasionally encountered the other Beatles. Her parents remain on friendly terms, and Ringo and wife Barbara Bach, as well as Maureen and Tigrett, were on hand for the Planet Alice opening.

For now, Lee is concentrating on running the shop. She has even arm-twisted Mom into helping out one day a week. Dad hasn’t made that commitment, but his presence will surely be felt every time the cash register goes ring-o. 

"I feel I'm very lucky at age 20 to find what I want to do in life," says Lee, at Planet Alice,where everything old is new again.